The Natural History of Selborne

Ephemera vulgata Meridie choreas aireas instituit, sursum recte tendens, rediensque eadem fere via: Scopoli.  A mole-cricket’s nest full of small eggs was discovered just under the turf in the garden near the pond.  They were of a dirty yellow colour, & of an oval shape, surrounded with a tough skin, & too small to have any rudiments of young withim them, being full of a viscous substance.  There might be an hundred eggs in this one nest; they lay very shallow just under a little fresh-moved mould in an hollow formed for that purpose.

The reed-sparrow, passer troquatus in aurundinetis nidificans, sings at Liss, near Mrs. Cole’s ponds.  It sings night and day while breeding & has a fine variety of notes.

*As it appears since, this was the passer arundicnaceus minor of Ray: a thin-billed bird, and probably a bird of summer passage.